


Vigil

by dreamoverdrive



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 00:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4414028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamoverdrive/pseuds/dreamoverdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of silences Zuko and Katara shared through canon and post-canon. </p><p>"Her lips pressed together and he knew she must have spent the night planning what she would say when he woke. She stared at him, desperately trying to communicate without words what she had felt, what she had gone through over the hours of him lying there motionless."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil

Zuko had grown more and more accustomed to and appreciative of silence over his life. His Uncle had taught him lesson after lesson of meditation and inner focus until it was nearly second nature to slip away to the fire at his core to search for answers.

Her silences always held more than he expected.

He remembered being younger and sitting in front of her tent through the night. He didn’t know what he could do, what he could say, how he could melt the icy fury in her face. He kept hearing her voice snapping at him over and over—

_I was the first one to trust you? Remember?_

She had also been the first to trace her fingers along his scar in years. He had wondered if telling her this would infuriate and disgust her as another reminder of his rejection, or if it would lighten the thunder clouds in her face. Either way, he had sat through the black night and cold in his bones, all because he knew there was nothing else he could do.

Her silences weren’t always angry. Often they were drenched with sadness and despair. He sat with her on Appa’s back as they returned from the mission. She couldn’t seem to decide if she had completed it or failed altogether.

Her fingers clutched at the reins and her shoulders were rigid and hard in the red light of the setting sun. Everything about the image was wrong, from the stiff way she sat to the bloody orange glow cast over her features.

Her eyes stared off into the sky and their vacant look told him that they were cycling through the moment over and over again, searching for the wrong choice, searching for her reason to regret the memory.

He reached over tentatively and closed his hand over fingers, waiting for the harsh glare and accusations.

He was surprised to find her fingers tightened over the reins, and then loosened. Her lips pursed and her brow knit in a last effort, and then her eyes filled with water and she folded. He sat in silence as she gripped his hand tightly and let out the consequences and relief of her choice to let the man go.

It was a long flight until morning, but the sun set and they spent the night in a blue blur of silence and forgiveness.

He remembered waking to her watch and her silence.

He stirred in the bed, trying to jolt up with the last remaining dregs of fear in his body that still screamed of lightning and danger and pain. Gentle hands pressed him down again, back into the heavy feather pillows and blankets. He felt like he was suffocating, like he couldn’t breathe surrounded by these red walls and red curtains—

And then he looked up into blue.

She watched him as tears leaked down from the corners of her eyes. They held so much relief, so much tenderness, so much gratitude—

And suddenly he couldn’t breathe again, but it was because of what he saw in her and felt in his chest.

Her lips pressed together and he knew she must have spent the night planning what she would say when he woke. She stared at him, desperately trying to communicate without words what she had felt, what she had gone through over the hours of him lying there motionless.

He nodded and folded his fingers over her hand, and laid it on his chest so that she could feel the slow, steady beat of his heart.

They finished the last hours of the vigil together.

And now, after all this time and all his experiences with her silence, he still wasn’t quite sure what to feel.

He had asked her to stay with him. To stay in the palace, to plant her moon lilies in the Fire Nation garden, to wear the golden ring with the stone of deep red on her finger—to be with him. Without interruptions, without having to make excuses, without lingering looks as the gangways lifted in the harbors and ships set sail back to their opposite sides of the world.

She stared, eyes filled with hope and longing along with fear and reservation. He nodded at her when she looked around in nervousness. It was ok, they would be alone for awhile. She could think.

He half expected her to get up and leave to find some space, but she remained in the seat across from him, hands clasped and eyes drifting from him to the walls of the room and golden borders on cushions, always coming back to his face and growing softer.

She allowed him to keep his silent watch as she turned within herself for the answer. He could tell that she was asking herself if this warmer ocean would be enough, if the steam from the hot springs and the water in the rivers and streams would be enough to make up for the ice that had shaped and molded her.

For the first time in all their years together, Zuko broke the silence of their vigil.

“I’d never make you leave it all behind. Royal vessels could take you home every month or so, and sometimes I might be able to come. It would be messy, but they’d expect you. You’d have a huge role in peace-making. You’d be the first link of this new world, the Fire Lady born from sea and snow instead of some ridiculous pedigree—“

“Zuko, you’re speaking so quickly.”

A smile played at the edges of her lips as he swallowed the rest of his words, all except for a few. “This is your choice,” he said slowly. “Don’t let anything I said change your mind.”

She grinned and reached out, her hand cupping his face. “It’s what you haven’t been saying all this time that convinced me, you silly man. I think I’ve known my answer for a long time now. I was just making sure.”

His chest started to pound like there was lightning in it. “Does that mean—“

He fell silent when he saw the look on her face. The bright look of excitement and fulfillment, _Yes_ , it said, _of course_.

Their silences and watches had grown deeper and longer throughout the years, but Zuko was finding they always held something that stayed the same. It was the promise of more to come, the promise of progress, and the promise of a tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> This was done for Zutara Week! It was kinda popular on tumblr so I decided to post it as its own work.


End file.
